The last 16 months we have been told to stay at home, often only allowed to go outside to get groceries or go for a walk. So how has the Coming Out journey been for LGBTQ+ people who came out at a time where we all had to stay in? GCN has partnered with Dublin Bus and DoDublin for the Coming Out With campaign, bringing you the stories of six LGBTQ+ people living in Dublin who have told the world who they are during a time where it has been closed down.

Coming out to your family is often a planned event. For some, it may have taken months or years to gather the courage to do it. They try to choose the perfect venue, wait for the right moment or have a plan for if they have a negative reaction. The opposite was true for 29-year-old Jorge Baez. 

One day he came home from work in his native Mexico tired and stressed when his mother started nagging him for the hundredth time about getting a girlfriend.

“I don’t want to bring any girlfriend home because I don’t like girls,” he snapped back at her before truly realising what he had just said. She was stunned.

“Well, now, it’s very funny,” Jorge said. “But at that time, she was like why did you do this?

“My family is very religious, they are Catholic. And they were waiting for something else. They had another expectation for me. They were waiting for girlfriends and a family and you know, like this kind of ‘normal family’.” 

His parents did not take the news well and they did not support Jorge at first. However, in the following months, they slowly started to come around.

“The beginning was hard because you’re feeling alone and you think like, maybe it was not a good idea. It’s better to stay in the closet or keep it a secret. It’s like a fight inside of you because society has told you that you have to follow some rules. And it’s not about the rules. It’s about how you feel and how you can be happy with yourself.”

The journey to coming out and self-acceptance is not always linear, and after telling his family Jorge decided to move to Ireland a couple of years ago, and initially, he started hiding who he was again. 

“It was very hard because you never know how people are going to react. But then I started to see how the community supported each other in Ireland and I thought okay, I’m not alone. There are many people in the same situation and this is not a war just about me. Actually, it’s not a war. It’s just about feelings and security. And I have to be myself. And then I started a relationship and I thought I need to share this because it’s about respect for my life, his life, and the community in general.”

He decided to take part in this campaign sharing his coming out journey to show LGBTQ+ people who are moving to Ireland and people already in Ireland that you should celebrate unapologetically who you are.

After a year of staying in, it’s time to celebrate ‘coming out’. #DBPride #Pride2021 #PrideMonth pic.twitter.com/ejFnR0zdxr

— dublinbusnews (@dublinbusnews) June 26, 2021

“The idea or the concept to be part of this campaign is that it’s about sharing to the people that it doesn’t matter who you are. The only thing that is important is that you have to love yourself. And when people love themselves, everybody is going to love you. Because everybody wants to be with people who love and who show love.”

With more stories from the wonderful people who share their Coming Out journey in the Dublin Bus Coming Out With campaign, be sure to check back on GCN! And catch the campaign on the sides of the Dublin Bus fleet and bus shelters across the city!